Old School
by Adam Elkus
Rethinking Security
It is without reservations that I state that The Sovereignty Solution was the most important book of 2011 that most of you never read.
Anna Simons and her co-authors at the Naval Postgraduate School have crafted the national security equivalent of a religious revival. Like the Great Awakening, it contains a heavy undertone of conservatism (although thankfully no fire-and-brimstone moments akin to “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”) but also a call for reinvention. It is both a trip back to as we once were and a journey to a place we never were—but might go.
The Sovereignty Solution begins by laying out a set of unfortunate realizations: Americans don’t like protracted wars, are easily politically divided over national security, and our enemies understand us in many ways better than we understand ourselves. To make matters worse, those enemies, through use of human shields, lawfare, and the assistance of”useful idiots” both home and abroad, force us to play by their rules and agonize over how to deal with their asymmetric tactics. Our campaigns have attempted to use state-building and democracy promotion to overcome these difficulties, but met with mixed results. So far, the book is hardly different from many post-9/11 critiques.
I’ve ordered the book but it has not yet arrived. With respect to Adam Elkus’ comments, I offer two thoughts for consideration. Elkus states
Our opponents do NOT force us to play by their rules; due to a lack of imagination, skill and alternatives we continue to choose to do so. Quite foolish of us…
Our larger campaigns in this vein have not met with mixed results, they have failed universally to achieve most initially stated aims. Such campaigns must be avoided in the future for several reasons.
That really sums up the problem, does it not? We are inconsistent in the protection of our sovreignty due to the mentioned fragmented polity and a governmental system that is itself inconsistent. That is unlikely to change (and I for one would not want it to do so) we therefor have to opt for processes or strategies that indicate to all concerned that attacks on US interests are unwise. People are really reluctant to fight or even verbally challenge apparently insane persons who overreact to even minor slights…
The word ‘retribution’ is indicative of a mindset in the policy and military establishments that should be banished. Prevention beats retribution handily. The best way to find and kill enemy submarines is to get them in their port; once they go to sea, the task is immensely more difficult. Visiting ‘retribution’ — if one can find it — on a submarine that has just sunk one of your merchant ships may be mildly satisfying but it is certainly no solution to the problem.
Our concern regarding the internal ordering of states has less to do with threats relating to “terrorists” and more to do with threats relating to lack of state and societal access and utilization.
Our principal desire — and drive — is to have all states and societies — sooner rather than later — become internally organized, ordered, oriented and designed (their political, economic and social structures) so that they might better provide for the wants, needs and desires of their own populations and those of the rapidly expanding global economy.
Herein, we want outlier states and societies to become more-“open,” more-accessable and more useable re: global commerce and global trade.
THIS, I would suggest, is:
a. Why our campaigns are focused on state-building and democracy promotion, and why
b. A “sovereignty solution” is unlikely to be adopted.
Bottom Line: We will not allow a process which might provide that states and societies could become less-open, less-accessable and less-useful. This, we believe, would present a greater threat to the United States than that posed by those (terrorists, insurgents, etc.) who would actively resist such state and societal transformations as we require.